Timeline: Cyber events in 2012

March: A data breach at EPA affects 5,100 employees and 2,700 other people whose addresses, Social Security numbers and bank-routing information were in the agency’s database. DHS issues alerts warning of a cyber intrusion campaign against U.S. gas pipelines.

May: Anonymous obtains 1.7G of sensitive data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and posts it on The Pirate Bay file-sharing site.

July: NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander says there was a 17-fold increase in cyberattacks against U.S. critical infrastructure from 2009 to 2011.

September: Anonymous claims to have hacked an FBI database containing 1 million Apple user IDs. FBI officials deny the breach, and a private firm eventually admits to being the source of the stolen data.

October: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta outlines a new cybersecurity policy in a speech to Business Executives for National Security. An unencrypted NASA laptop is stolen from an employee’s vehicle, exposing personally identifiable information on 10,000 employees.

November: The Senate’s final attempt to bring a cybersecurity bill to a vote fails on the first day of Congress’ lame-duck session, effectively killing the legislation for 2012.

December: The latest version of a draft executive order on cybersecurity is circulated to relevant agencies for comment.

Sources: Center for Strategic and International Studies, DarkReading.com, FCW reporting

About the Author

Camille Tuutti is a former FCW staff writer who covered federal oversight and the workforce.

The Census Bureau hasn't established a time frame for its cloud computing plans, including testing for scalability, security, and privacy protection, as well as determining a budget for cloud services.